Name: Michael, son of Brin Mason

Race: Human

Age: 18

DP: 927

Status Effects: Minor Bruising, Petty Bleeding

Common Talents

Strength: Petty

Endurance: Major

Dexterity: Petty

Intelligence: Petty

Willpower: Average

Wisdom: Petty

Charisma: Petty

Personality: Major

Perception: Minor

Stats

Strength: 22

Endurance: 27

Dexterity: 18

Intelligence: 9

Willpower: 25

Wisdom: 12

Charisma: 5

Personality: 27

Perception: 15

Talents

Average Rage

Petty Ice Magic

Average Swordsmanship

Monster Talents

Average Troll Regeneration

Minor Tough Hide

Skills

Workout: 7

Study: 4

Spearmanship: 8

Shield: 8

Shield Bash: 4

Use Magic Item: 2

Throwing: 5

Magic Skills

Freeze Touch: 3

Freeze Bolt: 2

Freeze Edge: 1

I didn’t reach one thousand DP like I had hoped, but I had gotten almost a hundred, so that was good. I picked up another barrel of meat and carried it out to my cart. The bruising and bleeding would fix themselves soon, thanks to my troll regeneration. In fact, I was pretty sure they had already decreased by a stage.

As I took the last of the barrels of salt pork to my wagon, my party walked up. “Something wrong, Michael?” Dave asked, the six adventurers in tow. “You weren’t at the gate this morning, and you’re never late.”

“Oh, yeah, I got banished, so I need to grab all of my stuff and be out of town by tomorrow morning at eight.”

Dave came over and looked at my swollen eye. “You got your face punched in and you are the one that was punished? What happened?”

“The mayor caught me in his house and drug me in front of the sheriff.”

“You tried to steal from the mayor?” asked Martha. “I know he didn’t give us a reward, but stealing from him isn’t the way to fix that.”

“Oh, I didn’t steal from him, though I did accidentally break a vase. I played the adult game with his wife, and he got mad.”

“The adult...you mean sex?” asked Barry. “You fucked the mayor’s wife? I mean, yeah, she’s hot, if a bit old for you, but that was really stupid.”

“Yes, sex. That’s the word I was looking for. She’s the one that made a move on me and we were drunk. Besides, have you seen her melons?”

Martha muttered ‘men’ for some reason before covering her face with her hand, and Barry laughed. “Yeah, they are pretty massive.” He then thought for a little while. “Hey, how about we pack your things while you say goodbye to your family, then you come with us to look for the second dungeon?” I thought about it. I did need to say goodbye to everyone, and I wanted to help with the dungeon, but I also wanted to pack my own things. I guess I could just pull the cart instead. Maybe I can let others sit on it to add more weight? That would be fun.

“Ok,” I said, then handed Barry the key. “Just make sure you get all of my food.”

“Not a problem.” he said, and I left for Gabriel’s house.

An hour later, after my mom had finished crying, she handed me a note. Apparently it had come with the first talent I got, the Troll Regeneration. She then recommended that I head for Verlos city and join the adventurer’s guild. That would let me go into dungeons, which they knew I loved doing, and I could figure out who this D.S. guy was to thank him. They said goodbye as I pulled my cart out the gate of the town. Once I got back, they would meet me outside the gate to say goodbye one more time, but that wasn’t really the same thing.

The ten of us set off down the road, Martha insisting that the new adventurers not ride in the cart as they needed to build Endurance. By the time we got to where we thought the goblins had left the forest, they were already wheezing for breath. “Come on, you can do it. Just a bit more and we can find those tracks, and follow them back to the dungeon.” I said, but the new guys just sighed loudly at that.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Please, can’t I just ride in the wagon? You don’t mind pulling it, do you?”

“I don’t mind, but you really do need the exercise. With all of the monsters a dungeon can throw at you, stamina is one of the best things to have.” At least, that was my opinion, as it let me shuffle many enemies at once and not get worn out. It was also my favorite benefit of my regeneration.

“Easy for you to say,” said a mage woman before stopping to bend over and throw up. She took a few deep breaths and the color returned to her face. “What is your Endurance anyway?”

“Twenty seven.” I said, and she stared at me, like I had disproven myself. “But I also have twenty two in strength, and I only have a petty talent in that. I just worked at it for at least eight hours every day for the last four months.” Sure, I had my regeneration making sure I could keep going, but I had worked at it.

“Eight hours?” asked a stunned swordsman. “There’s no way I can work out that much.”

“It helps if you have the Workout skill. I can teach you if you want.”

He shook his head. “Maybe later.” He helped his mage friend up and we set off again, following Martha and Barry as they looked for goblin tracks.

Thirty minutes later we found a game trail that cut through the forest that had dozens of goblin tracks in it. Martha let us take a break for a few minutes, and the new guys sat down or collapsed, only the swordman managing to keep standing long enough to make sure his friends had water and snacks. The Mage woman didn’t want to eat because her stomach was still upset, but he convinced her to eat a bit of bread anyway, which helped to settle her stomach.

She then started touching her wand to her calf muscles and a green glow came out of it. Her face started to relax and she looked like she was about ready to go to sleep.

“So, you’re a healer?” I asked, walking over and sitting down beside her.

“Minor Life magic, petty lightning.” she responded. “I learned all of the spells I could before coming out here.”

“That’s pretty impressive that you were born with that talent.” I responded.

“That she was born with that money.” said a mace-man sitting three meters away. “Her dad’s a merchant in Verlos. He bought her those talents off a friend of his that buys talents from adventurers. Ten silver for a petty magic talent, two gold for a minor. So just in talents she has several months of investment from her dad. And that’s before he hired her a fancy tutor to teach her all of the petty Lightning and petty and minor Life spells.” The mage woman looked upset by him saying it, but he just shrugged. “If you grew up in the slums like me you would have had to work for what you got. That’s why I was able to make it here without having to throw up.” He stood and did several stretches and even a few pushups just to show off before sitting down again.

I patted her on the back. “Don’t worry about it. My parents gave me a talent for regeneration, and that’s how I got as good as I am.” She nodded and looked a little happier.

“Don’t bother.” said the maceman. “She took a vow of chastity when the priestess taught her healing. Besides, I thought you preferred massive boobs. She’s pretty flat.”

She started to cry and the swordsman smacked him in the back of the head. “It’s ok,” I said, hugging her. “You actually remind me of my little sister, so I wasn’t after that anyway.”

She stopped crying and stared at me for a few seconds, surprised that I had said that. “Um, so, what’s she like?” she asked.

“She looks a lot like you, but has blonde hair instead of brown. She’s a seamstress in town, though she always loved hearing about magic, especially the healing kind. She doesn’t have any kids yet, but she is married. Oh, and she’s sixteen.”

“I’m seventeen.” she responded, but before I could say anything in response Martha told us to stand up so we could continue.

I took up the rear, I pulling the cart. It wasn’t as quiet as a person walking, so Martha wanted me in the rear so that it didn’t alert the goblins. The ground was a bit more hilly here and soon the new adventurers were tired again. After about four kilometers, though, Martha looked over the top of a hill, then quickly crouched and motioned for us to stop. I carefully set down my wagon and reached in the back for my spear and shield. I had been walking with only my sword strapped to my back and my chef knife on my side but I hadn’t yet practiced with either. After tying my quiver of javelins to my waste, I picked up the shield and spear and crouch-walked up to Martha. “Gobs” I whispered, and she nodded. “Archers?” I whispered and she thought about it for a few seconds before pointing at the archers and miming firing a bow. The three adventurers that carried a bow and Barry came forward, as did the mage woman.

Once everyone had an arrow knocked, but not drawn, Martha made a chopping motion with her hand and the archers popped up, firing at the goblins. Seeing two of their friends get hit, they ran at the archers on the hill. The archers only got two or three arrows off before Martha, the mage, and I popped up and threw spells at the goblins as well. The mage woman’s wand glowed slightly on the end and a sparking mass of energy came out of the end, taking a bit of an oval shape as it flew at one of the goblins and hit him in the shoulder, causing him to fall on the ground shaking. Martha and I just burned or froze spots on their chests.

When they got too close, though, I knelt to pick up my spear and stab at one of them, piercing his heart. All of us started using melee weapons, including the mage woman who dodged and punched at the goblin that was attacking her. Soon, despite the fact that they started with twenty six troops, the goblins were all laying dead at our feet. The last to die was a goblin mage that managed some sort of dark bolt attack which missed before the swordsman hit him from behind, slicing halfway through his neck.

We cut out all of their stones and threw their crude iron weapons in the back of the cart. The wand of the goblin mage was actually a magic item as well, letting you use the ‘death bolt’ spell at level 5, so the swordsman kept it. Knowing that the dungeon had to be nearby, I left the cart behind as we set out on foot. Two hundred meters down the path we found an old, partially collapsed fort that had probably been abandoned more than two hundred years ago. According to one of the adventurers, that implied that this path was actually an old road instead of a game trail. There were goblin archers and crossbowmen on the walls and several swordsmen or spearmen standing near all of the holes in the walls.

“That’s probably where the dungeon entrance is.” whispered Martha. We all nodded, and she continued, telling us her plan, as she was the only one with military experience.

We snuck around the back of the fortress and all of the archers fired on the two guards covering a small hole in the back wall. Once the goblins were dead we entered into what had once been a chapel, but now served as a barracks, with three goblins currently sleeping in it in poor quality bedrolls. We slit their throats so they couldn’t scream. While Martha and Barry each took one of the two adventurers that had the sneak skill out to try and quietly kill as many as they could, the rest of us got ready for when they sounded the alarm.

They each managed to kill a group of three wall guards and shoot an archer, when one of the goblins cried out, an arrow sticking through its leg. With that noise, all of the goblins started looking for us and two hobs came out of the main barracks. The archers, the mage woman that I had heard someone call Millie, and I fired on the archers as the two stealth teams tried to find cover. Soon the hobs and several melee gobs were too close to us, so I grabbed my spear and stabbed at a mace hob. It easily dodged, but I kept stabbing, occasionally swinging the spear instead.

On one of those swings the hob managed to grab the spear and jerk and, rather than go tumbling forward like when I was on top of the wall I let go of it and he threw it to the side. I blocked several attacks with my shield as he took wild swings at me and I struggled to draw my sword. I managed to draw it just as he swung at my weak side and it seemed to naturally go to where it needed to be to block his strike.

I flipped the sword around so that it was held properly, and was able to parry or block his next several attacks. This must be what it felt like to have a talent for something. You just knew what you were supposed to do with it. Still, he was much better with his mace than I was with a sword, so it was all I could do to keep him at bay. After more than a minute of swinging at each other and not hitting, he started to get tired. I saw an opening where his move was a bit too slow and ignited the edge of my blade with freezing fire as I stabbed him in the side. The area around the wound froze but seemed to died at the same time, and he dropped his mace. Now that he was completely open, I swung at his neck and severed his spine, and he fell to the ground dead.

My battle with the hob had taken so long that the rest of them were finished and already collecting crystals. I quickly took the hob’s, then picked up his mace, the only thing he had that was worth anything. It was about twice as heavy as a normal mace, having a very hard wood as a handle and a much bulkier head. I went over to the mace adventurer. “Hey, what do you think of this?” I said, handing him the mace.

He almost dropped it because it weighed so much more than he was expecting, but then recovered and took a few test swings. “It’s in better condition than the one I have, but weighs a lot more. I’d say four kilos, as opposed to the two my normal mace weighs. Still, its handle is long enough that I can swing it two handed. What do you want for it?” While we would put all of the crystals together later and split them, we had agreed that you could claim equipment off of any goblin you killed immediately.

“Ten DP of crystal?” I asked, and he nodded.

“Sure, I’ll pay you after we split them up.” He hung his original mace on his belt and started practicing swinging the new one with both hands. It looked like he’d used a two handed mace before, but was more used to a one handed one.

I pulled the cart up while everyone else stripped the goblins of anything we might sell and piled up the bodies. None of them had anything magical on them, but several people claimed a new bow, crossbow, or arrows. The rest of the equipment went into the cart so that we could sell it and split the money once we were back in town.

Once Martha had set the bodies on fire, we set up in the barracks, where the dungeon portal was. It was already late in the afternoon, so we would enter the dungeon tomorrow morning. We would stay up in three shifts, with me staying up for every shift since I didn’t need to sleep. I would be practicing my sword skill out in the courtyard, on one of the practice dummies the goblins had set up and dressed in cheap looking padded armor. Two of them would guard the portal, with one near the door and me watching outside. As it was possible that some goblins were still out on patrol and would come back tonight, I would have to wear some cheap leather armor that one of the hobs was wearing, just not the one I killed. While their weapons were decent quality, their armor needed some work. Still, it should buy me enough time to scream for help if I was ambushed.

Thankfully nothing happened that night, and the next morning we were all ready to enter the dungeon.